Rudy Giuliani will unveil a big endorsement at a press conference today in New Hampshire — that of Manchester Mayor Frank Guinta. Guinta defeated a Democratic incumbent in an upset in 2005, and was re-elected earlier this month as mayor of the state's largest city.
Giuliani's campaign has been focusing a lot of effort on New Hampshire recently, running their first round of TV ads there instead of in Iowa. This may be an attempt by the campaign to downplay Iowa and then salvage a decent showing in the New Hampshire primary.
A new SurveyUSA poll of Kentucky shows Hillary Clinton beating the Republicans in all four match-ups, with two results within the margin of error and two well beyond it. On the other hand, Barack Obama doesn't do nearly as well, losing three matched and holding only a statistically insignificant lead in the other:
Mitt Romney has a new radio ad in New Hampshire featuring his most prominent endorser in the state: Three-term U.S. Senator Judd Gregg.
"As President, Mitt will bring that 'can-do, get-it-done, let's-solve-the-problem' optimism America needs today," Gregg says in the ad. "Mitt Romney embodies New Hampshire's values-the values you and I want in a leader."
ABC News has posted a pretty compelling interview with Mike Huckabee about immigration. In it, Huckabee was asked about charges from rivals that he's soft on immigration because he supported the children of illegal immigrants being eligible for scholarships and backed free prenatal care for illegal immigrants in need of it.
Huckabee's response:
"We penalize law-breakers. We don't penalize their children for something they can't help.
"If a child is gasping for air, asthmatic, and he's on the hospital steps, what do the other candidates suggest we do, let him sit there and gasp until he doesn't have any air left and he dies? If a child comes to our school -- and our law, by the way, in most of our states, mine certainly says you've got to educate a child if he's of child age -- what do you, break your own law and say, `No, you can't come in the schoolhouse door'?
"No, you don't do that. What you do is you elect a president who will fix the problem where it needs to be fixed: At the border. But if your government at the federal government is so incompetent that it fails to secure the border, you don't then grind your heel into the face of a 6-year-old child over it. That's not what this country does. We're a better country than that."
Right, but the question is whether the GOP base, not the country as a whole, is "better" than this. That Huckabee actually has to defend such sentiments tells you pretty much all you need to know about the sway that today's nativist right holds over GOP primary politics.
As he seeks to court GOP primary voters, one potential sticking point has been his opposition to the Vietnam War in the early 1970s and his vote for Dem George McGovern in 1972. But Rudy has now concocted a new explanation for that vote: He didn't mean it.
Or so he says in a new interview with The Weekly Standard:
"I had traditionally been a Democrat," Giuliani told me in a recent interview in Las Vegas. "It was almost like a reflex mode. I actually remember saying to myself, 'If I was a person really deciding who should be president right now, I'd probably vote for Nixon, because I think the country would be safer with Nixon.'"
Hmmm. Does this mean that Rudy didn't vote for the candidate who he himself thought would keep the country safer? Seems a bit odd. Foreign policy and national security issues were kind of front and center during that campaign.
The article also delves into Rudy's switch to the GOP, which came in 1980. In the piece Rudy seems to suggest that this was driven partly by his discontent with Dems on foreign policy. But as the Standard article accurately points out, Rudy's switch to the GOP neatly coincided with his desire to get a political appointment from the newly-minted Reagan administration.
If Mitt Romney is rising in the polls in New Hampshire, this might explain why: He appears to be spending huge sums on TV in the state, and has been doing so for some time.
Mitt was spending $100,000 a week through October, and he's now upped the ante to $200,000 a week, according to a report from GraniteProf that the Romney camp has not disputed. He notes that this level of spending translates into some 200 ads per week.
It's yet more confirmation of the extent to which the Romney camp is putting all its chips on big wins in New Hampshire (where he's widening his lead) and in Iowa (where the race is rapidly tightening) in advance of Rudy's predicted success on super-primary day, Feb. 5. (Via Jonathan Martin.)
Here's a fun little item to send you off into the holiday. Not surprisingly, it involves Rudy, whose antics never fail to disappoint.
Rudy Giuliani surprised a lot of people the other day when he defended Barack Obama for admitting to past drug use. Rudy suggested that it would be a mistake for a candidate to be judged on the basis of a "mistake" like this.
As many have pointed out, Rudy was apparently making an appeal here for folks to be tolerant of his own imperfections. And so, in light of Rudy's sudden tolerance towards past candidate drug use, we thought it would be worth recalling another drug-related Rudy episode.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been receiving foreign policy briefing sessions on a wide variety of topics, providing the strongest indication yet that he is considering a run for the White House, the Huffington Post has learned.
The sessions, which were confirmed by multiple sources, have been conducted with Nancy Soderberg, a former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and a Clinton Administration foreign policy adviser. One source described her as "Bloomberg's Condi."
A range of topics have been discussed, from non-proliferation to the defense budget, with a specific focus on the war in Iraq.
That really does suggest that he's seriously contemplating a run. One other thing we can conclude from this, meanwhile, is that Bloomberg apparently doesn't share Rudy's view that having been Mayor of New York is adequate preparation for the manifold foreign policy challenges a President faces. He apparently thinks you should learn something about the topic first.
I know the suspense over this has been killing you, but we can all relax now: New Hampshire's secretary of state has just announced that the state's primary date has been set for January 8, according to local station WMUR-TV. So:
Iowa: January 3
New Hampshire: January 8
Michigan: January 15
In under two months we'll know the results of all of these contests. Suddenly, the voting looms.
Relatedly, WMUR and ABC will hold Presidential debates in the state on January 5, three days before the contest.
Late Update: New Hampshire's decision was made in the wake of today's Michigan Supreme Court decision, clearing the way for their January 15 rogue primary. However, only Hillary Clinton and Chris Dodd will be on the Democratic ballot there.
John McCain really, really wants New Hampshire voters to know how much he cares about them. In his new radio ad in New Hampshire, he talks about how over the years he's come to recognize the threat of climate change — and also how important New Hampshire citizens were in influencing him. "You were right New Hampshire, and I'm glad I listened to you," he says. "And I'm still listening."
California Counts, the Republican-led group gathering signatures for an initiative to split California's electoral votes by Congressional district, now say they are confident they'll get enough to be on the ballot.
If this initiative were to pass, it would be an enormous gift to the GOP in 2008. It could award the Republicans roughly 20 electoral votes — which would be as good as winning Ohio, and potentially swing the presidency to the Republicans in a close race.
The Federal Elections Commission voted yesterday to weaken their restrictions on issue ads run by third party groups before an election, bringing the rules in line with a recent Supreme Court ruling. The new rules will allow a group to specifically mention a candidate by name and comment upon their positions, but it must be done within the overall context of discussing the issue at hand.
The ruling has the potential to open the floodgates for more issue ads in the upcoming primaries and the general election season, whereas some groups would have shied away from doing so last time. Reform advocate Fred Wertheimer told the Associated Press that the final rules are too permissive, and that they "will open the door to campaign attack ads masquerading as issue ads again being funded with soft money."
Hillary Clinton and John Edwards have both announced that they will skip a CBS News debate, scheduled for December 10, if it involves crossing a picket line. The CBS News workers voted last week to authorize a strike.
"I will honor the picket line if the workers at CBS News decide to strike," Clinton said in a press release.
Edwards also confirmed during a conference call with reporters that he will not attend the debate if there is an ongoing strike.
Here's today's key story out of the Iowa local press: The Des Moines Register reports that Emily's List, a PAC that supports pro-choice Democratic women, is working hard in Iowa — perhaps the single most important contest of the primary seasons — to convince women to go to the caucus for Hillary.
Their new Web site, with the very un-subtle name YouGoGirl.com, includes testimonials from Iowa women saying how excited they, their friends, and their daughters all are to be caucusing for Hillary. They are also distributing booklets to registered Democratic women who have not attended past caucuses, containing information on how to find and participate in their local precinct caucus — and how to caucus for Hillary.
Here's today's key story out of the New Hampshire local press: The Union Leader has picked up an AP wire story from a Bill Richardson campaign stop in Nashua, in which the candidate indicated that he's starting to look more favorably upon single-payer health care — but isn't ready to wipe out the insurance business.
"I'm starting to warm up to it a little bit because I get very frustrated with insurance companies ... They tick me off, and I wish I could say, 'You're out of this business,'" he said. "The problem with that is, fundamentally, I believe every American deserves choice."
The Hillary crew has just dropped an environmental mailer in Iowa, where Obama has edged into a small lead. At a time when Hillary and Obama have lit up the headlines with attacks on each other, this looks like an attempt to remind Iowans of the less-fiery, issue-tackling, solutions-oriented Hillary:
Here's today's key story out of the South Carolina local press: The State reports that Barack Obama has picked up the endorsement of a prominent black elected official, Williambsurg County Sheriff Kelvin Washington. Washington first became sheriff in 1998, and this past August was elected president of the South Carolina Sheriff’s Association.
Obama needs a very strong showing among black voters, who are expected to make up half of the state's Democratic electorate. Every African-American official who endorses him can help him get there — and if he doesn't get there, a loss here could damage his momentum if he had been doing at all well in previous contests.
Rudy Giuliani has a new ad in New Hampshire, quoting conservative columnist George Will's praise of Rudy's tenure as mayor of New York City — a line that Rudy frequently quotes in order to show off his conservative bona-fides:
This is Rudy's third TV ad in New Hampshire. By contrast, he has run no TV ads yet in Iowa, a sign that he might be trying to circumvent the caucus and instead repair his poll numbers in New Hampshire, where he's fallen way behind Mitt Romney.
Deepening the mystery surrounding the anti-Mormon polling calls, the Romney campaign is confirming that it referred reporters to two recipients of the calls without disclosing that the two were also on the Romney campaign payroll, TPM Election Central has learned.
In response to questions from TPM Election Central, Romney spokesman Kevin Madden confirmed that the campaign had failed to disclose this info to reporters. Madden suggested that the campaign had identified them as "supporters," which is a far cry from being directly paid by the campaign, as the two call recipients were.
The revelation could add grist to the theory -- now spreading on conservative blogs and even getting coverage by news organizations -- that the Romney campaign itself is behind the calls. Some have speculated that the calls -- which attack Romney and refer to his Mormon faith while saying positive things about McCain -- are an effort by the campaign to test negative messages about itself while getting McCain blamed for the calls.
The new revelation could give more ammo to those who question whether the firm making the calls -- which is already reported to have on staff several people who have donated to the Romney campaign -- knowingly called Romney supporters because they could be counted on to tell the press about the calls and to suggest to reporters that Romney rival John McCain was behind them.
It also raises the question of whether the Romney campaign referred reporters to the callers -- without disclosing their relationship with the campaign -- for the same purpose.
Democrats have just run into a relatively rare setback in candidate recruitment this cycle, with Montana Congressional candidate Bill Kennedy quitting the race. Kennedy had raised $179,000 and had $107,000 on hand, compared to incumbent Republican Denny Rehberg's $485,000 on hand.
Montana has been trending Democratic, with the governorship and both Senate seats held by Dems. However, Rehberg is still favored for re-election, and the state is expected to vote Republican in the presidential race.
House Republicans have lost one of their top recruits to take on a freshman Democrat, with businessman Andrew Saul dropping out of the race to go up against Congressman John Hall (D-NY). Saul had raised $800,000, but cited "personal reasons" in dropping out.
This district went to President Bush by a 53%-45% margin in 2004, but even one of the prospective new GOP candidates, state Assemblyman Greg Ball, says Bush's newfound unpopularity changes things. "George Bush has not only hurt the Republican Party, he's left the nation without leadership," said Ball. "It’s going to be a tough year to run as a Republican at the national level."
It appears that the Republican presidential candidates do have an area of disagreement with President Bush: He's negotiating too much with with people we don't like. The New York Sun reports that the Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson campaigns are publicly expressing skepticism regarding the upcoming one-day Middle East conference at the U.S. Naval Academy.
Charles Hill, an advisor to Giuliani, said it would be "very risky to push toward Palestinian political goals when the institutional foundations of statehood do not exist." And Thompson himself said there was "not reason for great optimism there to tell you the truth."
The new Zogby/Reuters poll shows the Democratic race tightening nationally, with Hillary Clinton now ahead of Barack Obama by a 38%-27% margin — down from 46%-25% last month. John Edwards is in third with 13%, up from 9% a month ago.
On the Republican side, Rudy Giuliani has a 29% plurality over Fred Thompson, who is at 15%. This is a slight improvement over the poll a month ago, which had it at 28%-20%. Mike Huckabee is in third with 11%, followed by Mitt Romney and John McCain at 9% each.
The new Washington Post/ABC News poll of Iowa shows Mike Huckabee catching up with Mitt Romney. Romney leads with 28%, followed close behind by Huckabee at 24% — a statistical dead heat. Fred Thompson is in third with 15%, and Rudy Giuliani is at 13%.
Huckabee has been focusing his campaign activities on Iowa, hoping that his underfunded campaign can come from behind there. If he did manage to beat Romney or make it close, it could seriously wound Romney's prospects.
On the heels of yesterday's poll showing Obama edging into a lead in Iowa come these new numbers from CNN showing Hillary's support dropping among likely Dem voters in New Hampshire:
Clinton: 36%
Obama: 22%
Edwards: 13%
Key nuggets: Hillary saw her lead drop from 23 to 14 points since September, when CNN's last poll found her at 43%, Obama at 20%, and Edwards at 12%.
And just as yesterday's Iowa poll found, some numbers suggest that rival criticism of Hillary is working. In this poll 13% said Hillary is the most honest and trustworthy candidate, while more than double that -- 27% -- said Obama is.
Oh, and Bill Richardson doubled his showing since September, checking in at 12% in today's poll.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) might be in some serious trouble in 2008 — a new SurveyUSA poll gives him a negative net approval rating for the first time, with only 44% approving and 47% disapproving. While it's technically a statistical dead heat, it's hardly a nice place to be for a four-term incumbent and party leader.
McConnell has had the unenviable job of leading the fight in the Senate for President Bush's Iraq policies, and it appears to be catching up with him. Democrats so far don't have a candidate to face McConnell next year, but some are working to recruit state Auditor Crit Luallen, who was easily re-elected to her current post earlier this month. Outgoing state Attorney General Greg Stumbo is also exploring the race, but has yet to officially declare.
the use of insults and accusations, esp. unjust ones, with the aim of damaging the reputation of an opponent. As in: Hillary Clinton said about Barack Obama, 'Now voters will judge whether living in a foreign country at the age of 10 prepares one to face the big, complex international challenges the next president will face.'
"Now we know what Senator Clinton meant when she talked about 'throwing mud' in the last debate. Like so many other things, when it comes to mud, Hillary Clinton says one thing and throws another."
This one gives new meaning to the phrase "all politics is local": Barack Obama hasn't just been courting the big papers in Iowa, like the Des Moines Register. He's going for the local weeklies throughout the state, too.
There are a total of 272 such papers in Iowa — many of them with circulations of under 2,000 subscriptions — and he's been pursuing them through group roundtables and even one-on-one interviews. In one case, a journalist from a paper that has a circulation of 1,367 told the New York Times that Obama was the first presidential candidate to interview with them in 17 years.
Here's the response from Obama spokesman Bill Burton to Hillary's mockery today of the notion that his childhood time abroad would help make him a better President:
"Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld have spent time in the White House and traveled to many countries as well, but along with Hillary Clinton they led us into the worst foreign policy disaster in a generation and are now giving George Bush the benefit of the doubt on Iran. The real choice in this election is between conventional Washington thinking that prizes posture and positioning, or real change that puts judgment and honesty first."
Thus recapping Obama's argument that the good people who brought you the Iraq War were positively swimming in D.C. experience -- and tying it to Hillary's vote for the Kyl-Lieberman Iran amendment.
Hillary racheted up her argument that she's got more experience than Obama in a big way today, saying the following to voters in Iowa today:
“I believe I have the right kind of experience to be the next President. With a war and a tough economy, we need a President ready on Day One to bring our troops home from Iraq and to handle all of our other tough challenges.
“Now voters will judge whether living in a foreign country at the age of 10 prepares one to face the big, complex international challenges the next President will face. I think we need a President with more experience than that."
That's a reference to Obama's claim yesterday that the childhood time he spent abroad would make him a better president. All that was missing here was a pat on the head.
We'll bring you Obama's response as soon as we have it.
Late Update: Obama spokesperson Bill Burton responds.
Recently we learned that Dem Senate leaders are contemplating getting rid of their call for withdrawal timelines in order to pass a December bill funding the next leg of the Iraq War.
This has prompted many people to start looking to House Dems to take a stand and draw a line against more funding. House Dems have been making noise about standing firm. But now the White House and GOP campaign to portray Dems as unwilling to fund the troops has kicked into gear, no doubt spooking some Dems, particularly those of the Blue Dog variety.
So what will House Dems do? What's their next step?
Well, today House Dem leader David Obey, who's insisting on withdrawal timelines, was asked this question at a presser. His answer: We won't fund the war without withdrawal dates. Take a look:
Transcript:
QUESTION: Mr. Obey, the rhetoric from the president is just going to get worse as the holidays approach. Are you going to continue to maintain the stance that you have of providing these conditions on war funds if he's to get the money?
OBEY: Of course.
I mean, we have provided the money. I will repeat that 50 times. We have provided the money. The money is not the issue. The issue is that the president is simply refusing to accept the conditions under which the money is provided.
This document says that that's the proper role of Congress. If you look at Article I, Section 8 and Article I, Section 9, they define the authority of the Congress to determine what policy is supposed to be financed and in foreign affairs, and we're simply -- we're simply following that document to the letter.
Pretty tough talk. The question now is whether House Dems will hold the line in the face of the propaganda barrage from the White House and GOPers, who have already started to paint the Dems as unwilling to fund the troops, even though it's the Republicans who are blocking the funding by refusing to support any funding bill that doesn't permit for war to continue forever.
Obey says House Dems will hold the line, and as chair of the Appropriations Committee, Obey is in a good position to help enforce this. We'll see what happens.
Washington State Democrats have filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission against two-term Congressman Dave Reichert (R). Reichert is a top target for 2008, facing a rematch with 2006 Democratic nominee Darcy Burner.
At issue is whether Reichert violated the law in depositing money from an August 27 fundraiser with President Bush directly into his own campaign account, rather than a joint account held by the Reichert campaign and the state GOP, and whether they took in contributions over the $4,600 limit.
Campaigning for her husband today at a historically black college in South Carolina, Michelle Obama told the audience that a Barack Obama win would change the country's image in a big way. "Imagine our family on that inaugural platform," she said. "America will look at itself differently. The world will look at America differently. There is no other candidate who is going to do that for our country. You know that."
South Carolina's Democratic electorate is expected to be about half African-American, so the state is considered a must-win for Obama, and this sort of appeal could help him solidify the black vote.
At the same time, there's a certain other candidate who would also change America's image — by being the first woman president — so it might come down to which milestone would be valued more by some of those voters.
Ben Smith has an advance look at this new ad Obama is putting up in South Carolina starting tomorrow:
The ad seeks to put his original message -- that he's the candidate of "hope" and "change" -- into the context of his biography, which is to say, the results he claims from his period a community organizer. It's perhaps intended as a rebuttal to Hillary's argument that Obama lacks the experience needed to effect the change he's promising.
Poll headlines like this really are a sign of the times:
George W. Bush's Job Approval Increases to 31%
The new poll, which is from American Research Group, says Bush's numbers have bounced up to 31% from his record low of 25% last month. Bush's big rebound is driven by a drop in public pessimism about the economy, the poll says.
Also driving Bush's comeback is the fact that the number of independents who approve of Bush has jumped to one in four -- up from last month's total of eight percent.
Here's today's key story out of the South Carolina local press: The State reports that Joe Biden has picked up the support of two influential African-American ministers in South Carolina. Biden has been endorsed by Rev. Caesar Richburg of Orangeburg, and Rev. J.J. Jackson III of Greenville.
Biden has had trouble breaking through in the polls, but has been campaigning heavily in South Carolina and has even won over the support of several prominent state legislators and other Democrats — though this has yet to register in the polls, either.
This is pretty interesting -- it looks as if Rudy, who's made his response to the September 11 attacks the centerpiece of his campaign, has been endorsed by only one of the five GOP members of the 9/11 Commission.
Two months ago Rudy was endorsed by former Illinois Governor James Thompson, a Republican and member of the commission. That's one.
This morning, John McCain's campaign announced that he'd picked up the support of Dr. John Lehman, the former Secretary of the Navy. Lehman is the third GOP commission member to back McCain; the other two include former New Jersey governor Tom Kean, the chairman of the commission, and former Washington Senator Slade Gordon.
That leaves only one remaining Republican commission member: Fred Fielding. Because Fielding works in the White House, he presumably won't be making an endorsement.
So now all five Repubs on the Commission are accounted for. And Rudy got only one.
Late Update: An earlier version of this post was written without the knowledge that Thompson had endorsed Rudy. I've edited the post to reflect this. Apologies for the error.
Here's today's key story out of the Iowa local press: The Des Moines Register reports that five-term GOP Senator Chuck Grassley, who has said he will most likely not be endorsing anyone before the caucus, predicts Mitt Romney will win it, followed by Mike Huckabee and Rudy Giuliani.
"First of all, Romney's got a state-to-state plan to do well in Iowa; he's putting money, putting resources and organization to get things done, and Huckabee, second, relates very much to Iowans," said Grassley. "Giuliani because he's waking up and realizes he's got to do third in Iowa if he's going to have a national chance."
Here's today's key story out of the New Hampshire local press: The Concord Monitor reports that a group called 9/11 Firefighters and Families traveled to the state yesterday to spread their message about Rudy Giuliani: That he's not the great leader he says he is.
Jim Riches, deputy chief of the New York City Fire Department and father of a firefighters who died that day, said: "And to see this man turn around now and say he did a great job preparing us and having leadership that day? It was lacking, and there was none ... Now he's trying to parlay it into the presidency of the United States ... He did nothing, and it doesn't qualify him to be president of the United States."
An "informed source" is telling the Lincoln Journal Star that state Attorney General Jon Bruning is planning to withdraw from the Nebraska Republican Senate primary sometime next week. If true, Bruning's exit would spare the GOP from a potentially divisive primary and effectively cede the nomination to former Governor Mike Johanns, who looks strong for the general election.
However, Bruning's campaign manager, Jordan McGrain, is dismissing the reports as “gossip and speculation.”
Hillary Clinton has a new ad in New Hampshire, bashing the Republican attack machine for attacking her:
It would seem there are three reasons to run this ad: 1) Republican attacks against her that win over their own loyalists might also turn Dem-leaning independents against Hillary; 2) Going after the Republicans for attacking Hillary could have a rally-around-the-flag effect for Hillary with her own partisans; and 3) The Hillary campaign has been likening the intramural attacks from Barack Obama and John Edwards to those heard from Republicans, so this ad could be seeking to marginalize their critiques.
A new SurveyUSA poll in New Mexico finds Congressman Tom Udall (D), who just declared his candidacy for the seat of retiring GOP Senator Pete Domenici, to be the clear frontrunner. For the Democratic nomination, Udall leads Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chávez by a 62%-32% margin, and also does better than Chávez in the general election match-ups.
Udall leads the two Republicans, Representatives Heather Wilson and Steve Pearce, by margins of about 15% in both cases. If Chávez is the Democratic nominee, he trails Pearce by ten points and Wilson by one point.
On the Republican side, Wilson is the frontrunner for the nomination, leading Pearce by a 56%-37% margin.
Mitt Romney used an interesting strategy last year to build up support for a presidential bid, the Boston Globe reports — he donated a lot of money. The Globe finds that Romney's charitable foundation donated a total of $253,833 to various charities and other groups that are influential in conservative circles, and now many of the people at those groups are backing his candidacy.
For example, Romney donated $10,000 to the Heritage Foundation, $10,000 to the Massachusetts Family Institute, $15,000 to Massachusetts Citizens For Life, and $10,000 to the Federalist Society. And this year, leading figures from all those groups have been campaigning for him.
At a New Hampshire campaign event yesterday, John McCain said that as president he would end the practice of issuing signing statements — a tactic used often by President Bush to declare certain aspects of laws unconstitutional and that he does not have to follow them, even as he signs them into law.
"It is wrong, and it should not be done," McCain said, when asked whether signing statements are themselves constitutional. This would seem to be avoiding the actual question, though, of whether Bush has routinely violated the Constitution. One of the signing statements has particularly stung McCain, too — it had to do with the McCain Amendment, which banned torture.
The Commission on Presidential Debates, an organization created in 1988 by the two major parties to organize debates for the general election season, has selected Oxford, Mississippi; Nashville, Tennessee; and Hempstead, New York, as the sites for next year's presidential debates, plus a vice-presidential debate in St. Louis, Missouri.
In a somewhat controversial move, the commission skipped over one of the 16 finalists — New Orleans. The New York Times reports that a local advocate in New Orleans said that Paul G. Kirk Jr., the Democratic co-chairman of the commission told her that the city was passed over because it was "not ready" for an event of this size. Kirk denies making any such statement, but did say that New Orleans does not meet the "enormous strategic challenges" of hosting a presidential debate.
Mike Huckabee has picked up another alpha male endorsement. Richard Morgan Fliehr, aka "Nature Boy" Ric Flair of WWF/WWE pro wrestling fame, has endorsed the former Arkansas governor and minister. CNN reports that Flair will co-host a tailgate with Huckabee at this Saturday's South Carolina vs. Clemson college football game.
Flair joins rocker Ted Nugent, he of the flaming arrows and lointcloths — not to mention stage routines calling for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to suck on his machine guns — plus the
Flashback: In 2000, Rudy Slammed Hillary For Playing Allegedly Pro-Drug Song At Campaign Event
